


the heart v. the eyes v. the head

by molotovhappyhour



Series: The Force Shall Free Me [5]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, M/M, Not a Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 12:21:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4835156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/molotovhappyhour/pseuds/molotovhappyhour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi knows that this isn't real the moment he sees Eren. But his body moves without consulting the rest of him. He's not sure the decision would be any different anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the heart v. the eyes v. the head

**Author's Note:**

> why can't i put anything in chronological order

It’s a routine check-in with the government of the oft-pigheaded officials that rule over the population of Duros. A lot of walking is involved, a lot of flight—the orbital cities that rotate around the dying world make everything infinitely more complicated than it would otherwise be had the planet not been ruined by rampant, _unchecked_ industrialisation.

But Levi isn’t in government so that isn’t really his problem. His only job is to stare at each official until they cower, huff, and admit that they’re not doing anything that would displease the Senate (and so, by proxy, the Order itself).

The thing is, it’s just... _exhausting_. Eren’s mouth would normally be working its way around questions and formulating answers to them before he’d even finished speaking. He’d be pointing and making awed sounds under his breath. He’d be labeling species and guessing destinations for each person in every spaceport they landed in.

Eren would make Levi feel less tired.

( _what does the force say about me?_ )

But Eren isn’t here. He’s in a permacrete jail cell back on Coruscant and Levi can feel him like an itch at the back of his skull. That sensation—the urge to reach out, to wrap himself up, to breathe in and out to taste the composition of the universe—makes the waiting game unbearable. He just wants to go _home_. The bustle of the Duros spacesport makes his sinuses feel too full, the toxic mass of the planet beneath him making his tongue curl as it pushes against his awareness in the Force.

Levi fucking _hates_ routine missions.

He’s tucked himself against the transparisteel window closest to the docking ships, waiting for a shuttle to take him back to the capital. ( _“subtlety,”_ Erwin had said. “ _we need to look mundane and within control of our members.”_ ) People filter between each other, close but never touching, each one a microcosm unto themselves. Sometimes it seems as if no one in the universe is trying to participate.

Levi gets that.

It’s inside this hum of people that something catches his attention, the feel of liquid metal running over his skin as he flicks his eyes from person to person, trying to find something... out of place. The liquid rolls over his shoulders as he sits up, trying for nonchalant, and he tugs the cowl of his robes down, freeing his peripheral vision.

He spots Eren almost instantly.

Even though the feeling in the Force is different, even though it’s _wrong_ , Levi’s eyes are brought to the figure that looks _just like Eren_. The cut of their jaw, the shape of his ears, the windswept mess his hair always managed to be. The expression isn’t right, not entirely, but the face, the build, the posture—it’s all _Eren_.

Levi stands and moves before his body even consults his brain. He doesn’t break into a run—he’s not quite that stupid, and he’s probably not that desperate—but his strides are long and measured, eating the distance between himself and the thing with Eren’s face more quickly than was probably respectable.

Not-Eren walks with a grace that Eren himself rarely displays outside of battle, when the Force uses him as a vessel rather than him using _it_. The fluidity ruins the illusion, and even as Levi reaches for the thing’s elbow, he knows it’s not Eren, knew it the moment he felt them in the Force. Knows it now.

But his body doesn’t speak to the rest of him. It doesn’t ask permission.

( _what does the force say about me?_ )

“Yes?” The thing with Eren’s face turns and the voice isn’t right either. It’s musical, soft and measured. It holds none of Eren’s intensity, just like their presence in the Force. The slow blink is innocently baffled, the mouth turned up into a soft, confused smile. It’s leaps and bounds different than the twist Levi had seen on it last, or the tired resignation that he’d dealt with in the silent flight back to the capital. It’s different—but this face is still Eren’s.

Levi drops his hand away from their elbow, feeling betrayed—even though he _knew_. He knew.

“I’m sorry,” he ends up saying, the words clotting on his tongue like dirt. “I thought you were someone else.”

The smile turns into something more sympathetic, something wider and a little sad. “I get that a lot. Sorry for the confusion.” The wrong Eren steps away with another too-sad smile and walks away, looking ethereal in their movements—but still so _wrong_.

(Still so beautiful.)

And something inside Levi slots the pieces together as not-Eren disappears, heads turning to follow them with the same sort of half-desperate, half-absolutely dumbstruck gaze that Levi had to have had on his face as he’d followed a complete stranger through a spaceport. He’s heard about this sort of thing, heard about it all the time on Tatooine, from his Hutt employers to the loud declarations of drunken smugglers in cantinas where more than half the stories told were lies anyway.

(“ _angels,_ ” Levi remembers past the slur in the creature’s voice, their tongue heavy under the influence of whatever it was they’d been drinking, “ _are the most beautiful creatures in the universe. do you know why they say that?_ ”

“ _no_ ,” Levi had replied, because he didn’t really give a shit and the talking was just making his head hurt. He had a job to do, he wasn’t here to listen to drunken spacers tell stories.

They had rolled their eyes hard enough that Levi had felt sick on their behalf. “ _because,”_ and they’d sounded appalled, _exasperated_ , “ _their looks_ change _. they look different to every single person. it’s all relative._ ”

 _“whatever,”_ Levi had said.)

The memory sticks with him the whole flight back to Coruscant, aching in his bones. When he shuts his eyes, perhaps considering that he could sleep if he tried hard enough, he sees Eren in the Duros spaceport, his gait and expression purely _his_. Beautiful and excited and breathtaking. And, as with most things that involve both Eren and Levi, he moves before he can think about it, before he can tell himself why it’s a terrible idea.

They’re still kilometers apart. They’re still kilometers apart and Eren is still shutting everything and everyone out. And yet. And _yet_.

And yet Levi reaches anyway, finding Eren like he always does (even as he hides himself) and pulling his presence around him like a shroud. It’s warm, here—inside the space that Eren makes in the universe. It’s warm and loud and Levi wonders how he was ever confused enough to think about it as anything other than the comfort that it is.

It stings when he touches it, his fingertips itching against the sensation.

He holds it close anyway, surrounded and wrapped tightly around his shoulders, because even this way he can still feel the Eren he's always been.

Levi breathes in and thinks of angels. Thinks of the most beautiful thing in the universe. Thinks.

(When sleep finally does deign to bless him, he sees Eren, feels the murmur against his lips, feels the cold of a Mandalorian winter bite at his cheeks even as the rest of him goes soft beneath his ribs.

“ _what does the force say about me?_ ” Eren asks.

This time he says nothing, skipping the dialogue that makes Eren flinch away, and he kisses him instead. He makes the first move. Levi does it _right_.

The Force says a lot of things about Eren Jaeger.

All that Levi can manage in his dream, against his mouth, is “ _you’re beautiful._ ”

It feels inadequate. Eren laughs anyway—and it tastes like the birth of a new star.)


End file.
